This document summarizes a study that analyzed news media framing of the Occupy Wall Street and Egyptian Revolution protests. It found that US news coverage of the Egyptian Revolution was more likely to use injustice, legitimacy and contextual frames, while coverage of Occupy used more spectacle and delegitimizing frames. Non-US coverage of Occupy used more injustice and legitimacy frames than US coverage. US coverage of Occupy also contained more delegitimizing and spectacle frames than non-US coverage. The study did not find significant differences in framing over time for Occupy coverage.

1. Framing Dissent:
News Coverage of Occupy and the
Egyptian Revolution
Christopher Fers
cjfers@syr.edu
Imon Edmonson
iimon@syr.edu
Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication

2. Background
 Protests
 Occupy
 Egyptian Revolution
 Portrayal in the News

3. Theory – News Framing
 Patterns of treatment
 Create Narrative Structure
 Facilitate Audience Engagement
 Emphasis of values, facts, etc.
 “Framing essentially involves selection of
salience” - (Entman, 1993)

4. Theory – Protest Paradigm
 Excessive critique = axiomatic of countercultural
protest.
 Gitlin’s “The Whole World is Watching” – Study of
SDS treatment.
 Frames used to delegitimize, marginalize,
demonize.
 E.g. Violence disproportionately reported.

5. Methods
 Quantitative Content Analysis
 Inter-coder Reliability - Cohen’s Kappa
 Sample - FoxNews.com, CNN.com, MSNBC.com
& Aljazeera.com (n = 63)
 Codes - Frames, Location, Time & Revolution
 Absent or Present
 Unit of Analysis - Whole Article
 Level of Analysis – Institutional

6. Frames
 Injustice - how the people who are in involved in a
movement are treated immorally or wrongfully
discriminated against
 Legitimacy - Understanding and justification for the
actions of the protest
 Delegitimizing - discounting of the protestor’s position
 Spectacle - allows for protestors to be viewed as
deviant and wayward in their actions
 Contextual - gives past history and references
creation of the movement.

7. Time
U.S.
Non- US (Qatar)
Location
Event
Egypt Composite Week – 1/26/2011- 3/8/2011
Occupy Composite Week – 10/4/2011 – 11/21/2011
All Contemporary Composite Week - 1/29/2012 – 3/17/2012
Occupy
Egyptian Revolution

8. Hypothesis 1, 2 & 4
Injustice (62.5 %), x2 = 14.38 , Cramer’s V= .53
Legitimacy (75%), x2 = 6.297, Cramer’s V= .35
Contextual (68.8%), x2 = 12.44, Cramer’s V= .294
US based news coverage of the Egyptian
Revolution will contain more injustice, legitimizing,
contextual frames than US based coverage of the
Occupy movement.

9. Hypothesis 3 & 5
Delegitimizing (65.7%), x2 = 12.44 , Cramer’s V= .494
Spectacle = Not Significant X
US based news coverage of the Occupy
Movement will contain more spectacle and
delegitimizing frames than US based coverage
of the Egyptian Revolution.

10. Hypothesis 6 & 7
Injustice (40 %), x2 = 2.801, Cramer’s V= .265
Legitimizing (100 %), x2 = 6.984, Cramer’s V= .418*
*(n = 5)
Non U.S. based news coverage of the Occupy
movement will contain more injustice and
legitimizing frames then U.S. based coverage.

11. Hypothesis 8 & 9
Delegitimizing (65.7 %), x2 = 7.731, Cramer’s V= .440
Spectacle (71.4 %), x2 = 9.52, Cramer’s V= .448
US based news coverage of the Occupy
movement will contain more delegitimizing and
spectacle frames than non-US based news
coverage.

12. Hypothesis 10 & 11
Not Significant X
Early coverage of the Occupy Movement will
contain more delegitimizing and spectacle frames
than later coverage.

13. Hypothesis 12
Not Significant X
Later coverage of Occupy will contain more
legitimizing frames than earlier coverage

14. Discussion & Future
Research
 Foreign pro-democracy movements with
positive frames
 Primarily anti-status quo movement with
oppositional frames
 Frames over time
 Limitations
 Suggestions for future research

15. News Coverage of Occupy and
the Egyptian Revolution
Syracuse University, S.I. Newhouse School of Public
Communication
Framing Dissent:Christopher Fers
cjfers@syr.edu
Imon Edmonson
iimon@syr.edu